Building Brazil's bonds beyond economic exchanges
Most Chinese adore Brazil's soccer, dance and carnival.
"(But) Brazilian culture is still little known in China," Brazil's consul-general in Shanghai Ana Candida Perez says.
That might change this month, as September is the Month of Brazil in China - a series of events promoting the Latin American country's culture, cuisine and lifestyles in several Chinese cities.
"In September, we want to go beyond football and carnival, and showcase in China other aspects of Brazilian culture," Perez says. "We are bringing to China photographers, musicians, cuisine chefs, designers, writers, new feature films and documentaries."
China is Brazil's biggest trade partner and an important investor in the rapidly developing country. But cultural exchanges have lagged behind economic engagement, Shanghai's news office director Chen Jingxi says.
"Shanghai went to introduce our city to the people in Brazil last year, and now we can return their kindness and help to improve our people's knowledge about Brazil," Chen says.
Brazil celebrates its national day on Sept 7. This year is the 40th anniversary of Sino-Brazilian diplomatic relations, so the China-Brazil High Level Commission for Coordination and Cooperation had recommended the Month of Brazil in China run this September.
Most events will be staged in Beijing and Shanghai. Some will visit such cities as Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Hangzhou, Macao, Nanjing and Wuxi.
Francis Hime, a veteran composer, pianist and singer, met with audiences in Shanghai at the Minsheng Museum of Modern Art on Sept 8 to share his experiences with bossa nova and Tropicalia - a 1960s Brazilian cultural movement that fuses local melodies with African beats and rock. He and his wife Olivia staged a concert in Shanghai's Qianshuiwan Theater the day before. Bossa nova was born in the 1950s, and soon spread to the rest of the world. It's a mix of samba, which is rooted in Africa, and cool jazz, which arose after World War II, Hime says.
"Many people don't know Ono Lisa came from Brazil," says Shanghai music and film critic Sun Mengjin, a moderator for Hime's lecture.
Ono Lisa is a Japanese-Brazilian singer who has staged several successful concert tours in China. "She grew up in Sao Paolo, where there is a quite big community of immigrants from Japan," Sun says. "Brazil is a country of diverse ethnic composition. It's a very colorful and musical nation, with great impact on the world music scene."
It's cultural richness and vitality is also reflected in the film industry.
"The colors and shapes are different from what Chinese audiences are familiar with," Beijing film critic Wang Xudong explains. "We Chinese may think the contrasts are too sharp or inharmonious, but that's the visual stimulation."
The Cinema Novo movement, which stresses equality and intellectualism, started in Brazil in the 1960s and was an important page in global film history. The country has since gone on to make high-quality films about social problems relevant to all the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), which are in the same economic development phase, Wang says.
